Wifi issue since last update and held back updates

[Zebulon Walton]

In linux, after entering and executing a command and no confirmation message (or any message at all) and all that appears is blank command prompt means that the command executed successfully.

This was the same for me when I executed the same command. I rebooted immediately and checked my wifi settings to make sure they were intact and being used.

I jokingly describe this as no news is good news. Alternatively, if there was a problem after executing the command, the system would notify me of it by displaying a message. Otherwise, the command was successful.

I cannot explain why Linux works this way. I just accept it.

It's a holdover from ancient Unix systems where output is kept as terse as possible because you'd usually be working on a Teletype or other hardcopy terminal, or a primitive CRT terminal on a slow serial connection. It's also why bang editing (with "!") is still supported in most Linux shells. In the old days it frequently was not possible to pull back a command line to fix a typographical error using cursor keys (you might not even have those), so at a hardcopy terminal you might wind up doing something like this if you say mistyped a filename:

Code:

$ rm deelete.me
rm: cannot remove 'deeleteme': No such file or directory

$ !!:s/dee/de
rm deleteme

All very terse and easy to do on a hardcopy or slow CRT terminal. Since I worked with Unix systems over 40 years ago I have lots of kruft like that floating around in my brain.

You can thank these guys (note the Teletypes being used as hardcopy terminals):